So March 17 snuck up on me this year with all the chaos. I had been ordering groceries on line and picking them up. So Monday morning I was ordering my groceries and remembered St. Patrick’s Day. So I added corned beef and cabbage to this as obviously I do not have time to whip out the saltpeter and make my own this year. But when I tried to submit my order I wasn’t going to able to pick it up until Wednesday (thanks to the pandemic). I was working that day so I thought Tom could pick up the groceries, and we could celebrate on Thursday. But as I thought about it, I thought that was silly and we ought to be able to celebrate on Tuesday. So I scrounged around the internet and found the Irish Beef Stew recipe I have made before but also an Irish Brown Bread recipe. Both of these I could make with ingredients on hand with some minor substitutions.

So I canceled the corned beef and cabbage and on Tuesday made these dishes. Here they are all cooked up.

I had a few sips of the leftover Guinness too. It all felt very Irish and turned out well. Tom thought the bread was dense, but I was surprised how light it was for whole wheat flour and baking soda & powder for leavening. We both agreed it tasted well dipped in the stew. So we ate our Irish dinner and then took a hot tub while it was remarkably quiet now without traffic. It turned out to be a nice St. Patty’s Day.

PS. Tom picked up the groceries Wednesday and they had no kitty litter. He ended up going in the store and found one box of any brand in the back of one shelf. So he took the last one Freddie’s had. But we are not hoarding. We were out of kitty litter. It is odd what is missing from the shelves in this pandemic. Poop related supplies seemed to be high on the list for some odd reason.